Liu Yuying, Liu Xinxin, Wang Meng, Wen Decheng
School of Management, Shandong University, Jinan, China.
Front Psychol. 2021 Dec 15;12:800766. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.800766. eCollection 2021.
Enterprises often post branded content on social media and adopt a proactive response approach to improve digital customer engagement to gain a competitive advantage. However, there are many brands which fail to operate social media as effectively as expected. The effective use of brand social media strategies to improve digital customer engagement remains an ongoing challenge for the enterprises. Based on firm-generated content theory and social presence theory, this study aims to identify the impact of brand social media strategies on different levels of digital customer engagement, including positive filtering, cognitive and affective processing as well as advocacy from content strategy and response strategy. Based on 1,519 brand posts on the official Weibo pages of eight of the top 500 Chinese brands in 2021, this study uses a multiple linear regression model to examine the impact of brand social media strategies on digital customer engagement and the moderating effects of brand image and discretionary purchases. The findings show that, on the one hand, among the brand social media content strategies, action content strategy is associated with higher levels of digital customer engagement. On the other hand, different brand social media response strategies have a differential impact on digital customer engagement levels, with cohesive response being the best strategy for increasing digital customer engagement level. In addition, the effectiveness of brand social media response strategy in digital customer engagement is further moderated by the brand image and discretionary purchases. In contrast, the effectiveness of brand social media response strategy in digital customer engagement is stronger when the brand image emphasizes its "competence" or the discretionary purchases focus on "material purchases." This study not only enriches the research on digital customer engagement but also provides a reference for the brand strategy selection, design and management based on social media.
企业经常在社交媒体上发布品牌内容，并采取积极的回应方式来提高数字客户参与度，以获得竞争优势。然而，有许多品牌未能像预期那样有效地运营社交媒体。有效运用品牌社交媒体策略来提高数字客户参与度，仍然是企业面临的一项持续挑战。基于企业生成内容理论和社会临场感理论，本研究旨在确定品牌社交媒体策略对不同层次数字客户参与度的影响，包括积极筛选、认知和情感处理以及来自内容策略和回应策略的拥护。基于2021年中国500强中八个品牌官方微博页面上的1519条品牌帖子，本研究使用多元线性回归模型来检验品牌社交媒体策略对数字客户参与度的影响以及品牌形象和非必需购买的调节作用。研究结果表明，一方面，在品牌社交媒体内容策略中，行动内容策略与更高水平的数字客户参与度相关。另一方面，不同的品牌社交媒体回应策略对数字客户参与度水平有不同影响，凝聚性回应是提高数字客户参与度水平的最佳策略。此外，品牌社交媒体回应策略在数字客户参与度方面的有效性会受到品牌形象和非必需购买的进一步调节。相比之下，当品牌形象强调其“能力”或非必需购买集中在“物质购买”时，品牌社交媒体回应策略在数字客户参与度方面的有效性更强。本研究不仅丰富了对数字客户参与度的研究，还为基于社交媒体的品牌战略选择、设计和管理提供了参考。
